Britannia: Part I: The Wall

by Richard Denham

  And each man, woman and child turned to the one next to him and kissed him.

  Next to Vitalis stood a young man about his own age. He leaned across and kissed the tribune on the cheek. He whispered in his ear, ‘It’s about now,’ he said, ‘that the candles go out and we all fall on each other, in an abomination of incest. Isn’t that what you pagans believe?’

  ‘Us pagans?’ Vitalis frowned as the congregation filed out, careful to leave their donations in the cup of the attendant by the door.

  The young man smiled. ‘My name is Pelagius,’ he said. ‘Have you got a minute?’

  Stephanus threw the silvered helmet down on Count Thoedosius’ desk. It rolled so that it seemed the face was looking up at him, chilling and deadly.

  ‘A child found it,’ the cavalryman said, easing off his boots after the long ride. ‘Near a dead body.’

  The Theodosii, father and son, looked at each other. ‘This body,’ the younger man said. ‘Could it be our friend?’

  ‘Valentinus?’ Stephanus grunted, squeezing his toes. ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘No, no, wait a minute,’ the Count was thinking this through. ‘Theo, have you come across a war band, any that he might have ridden with?’

  ‘Where was this, Stephanus?’ Theodosius asked.

  ‘On the road to Verulamium,’ the German crossed to the Count’s wall map, the one superimposed on a pastoral scene that was once Julius Longinus’ pride and joy. ‘About …’ he found the approximate spot and fixed it with a finger, ‘here.’

  ‘No,’ Theodosius shook his head. ‘I came across a little trouble further south than that, along the Thamesis. Stephanus, you were with me.’

  The cavalryman nodded. ‘They were locals,’ he said, ‘cashing in on the situation.’

  ‘We hanged them, anyway,’ Theodosius remembered.

  ‘And the last serious clash I had,’ the Count said, ‘was shortly after the Ides of Ianurarius, due north in Trinovantes territory. I certainly didn’t see this,’ he picked up the helmet, as though somehow by looking at it and handling it, he could see the face of Valentinus peering out of the eyeholes at him. ‘It’s like a play, isn’t it?’ he said, half to himself. ‘A tragedy by Pacuvius perhaps. The man’s an actor and a bloody good one, always hiding behind his mask. What does he want us to think now; that he’s dead and we can all go home?’

  ‘It’s a ruse,’ Theodosius said. ‘It’s got to be.’

  ‘What if it’s not?’ Stephanus asked. He crossed back to his masters and sat forward in his chair. ‘What if he’s finished, not actually dead, but beaten? We’ve all faced barbarians before. We know they can't hold a field for ever. Over winter his men will have had a chance to think; to wonder. There’s no more booty, no more loot. The villas have been plundered and the towns are too strong. What about the wife? What about the children? They’ll leave, desert him in numbers.’

  There was a silence. ‘I hope to whatever gods the three of us believe in that you’re right, Stephanus,’ the Count said. ‘And time will tell. If we hear of no more attacks in the coming weeks, with spring upon us, we can assume that the owner of that,’ he pointed to the helmet, ‘has indeed given up the ghost. In the meantime, Theo, get a rider off to Maximus. Tell him what we’ve found. See if he can shed any light.’

  ‘How did you know I was a pagan?’ Vitalis asked again. He was walking through the market place with the strange young man who had given him the kiss of Christ in the church. The stalls were doing a roaring trade for all it was the Christian Sabbath; lambs bleating in their pens, ducks quacking and hens fluttering. There were skins for sale, tooled leather, aprons, pots and pans. Samian ware from Gaul and German trinkets carved in dark wood. The city that would one day rival Rome was on its way.

  ‘The responses,’ Pelagius told him. ‘You didn’t join in. So, unless you’re deaf, you’re an unbeliever.’

  Vitalis caught the man’s sleeve. ‘Where are you from?’ he asked. ‘I can't place the accent.’

  ‘Hibernia,’ Pelagius said. ‘To the west at the edge of the world.’

  ‘Attacotti,’ Vitalis said, stone-faced.

  Pelagius frowned. ‘Those godless bastards? No, I’ve nothing to do with them. Why were you at our church, tribune?’

  ‘Let’s just say I was intrigued,’ Vitalis murmured.

  Pelagius looked hard into the man’s eyes. The tribune had a strong face, but there was pain there; and loss and bewilderment. ‘If you took off your tunic,’ he said, ‘would I find whip scars on your back?’

  Vitalis blinked. Pelagius smiled.

  ‘You are a child of the darkness,’ the Hibernian said. ‘I am a child of the light.’ And he walked on.

  Vitalis caught up with him, half stumbling over a stand of pots in front of a stall. ‘You’re very sure of yourself,’ he said.

  ‘Of course I am,’ Pelagius smiled. ‘All you can see is me. But I know the Lord Jesus is walking with us.’ He looked around at the screaming, cackling market and the flash of coins changing hands. ‘And that’s a comfort, believe me.’

  ‘You go along with all that rubbish of the Bishop?’ Vitalis asked.

  Pelagius stopped by the conduit that brought drinking water from the river and took a swig from a gourd hanging there. ‘No,’ he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. ‘Not all of it. Dalmatius would have us believe that we are all sinners – it has been that way since the Fall.’

  ‘The Fall?’ Vitalis was confused.

  ‘Drink, tribune?’ he offered him the gourd. Vitalis shook his head and the Christian poured the water away. ‘There,’ he said. ‘That’s where the Bishop and I disagree.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ the tribune frowned.

  ‘You chose not to drink, yes? That was your free will?’

  Vitalis still looked doubtful. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dalmatius won't have that. Since the serpent tempted Eve, and she in turn tempted Adam, we are all born sinners. Only the Lord can save us, at the end of time.’

  ‘And you don’t believe that?’

  ‘That the Lord can save us, yes, but not the rest. We all have choices to make; places where the road diverges and we must choose one path. I chose the way to my God; you chose the army and, I am guessing, Mithras. Look there,’ Pelagius pointed to a baby suckling his mother’s breast alongside a market stall. ‘There is one of Dalmatius’ sinners.’ The man winked and nudged Vitalis. ‘You can tell he’s evil incarnate, can’t you?’

  ‘That’s rubbish,’ Vitalis said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Pelagius walked on.

  ‘It’s all rubbish.’

  ‘Ah.’ Pelagius stopped. ‘Not all, Vitalis. Some of it is quite profound. Some of it is the truth.’

  Vitalis stood and watched the man go. He had a strange sense of calm about him, almost of peace. And the tribune had never seen that in a man before. At the corner of the market square, just where dark alleyways led to the sunlight, Pelagius turned. ‘Will we see you in our church again?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Vitalis said quickly. ‘No, you won't.’

  North of the river, beyond the city’s eastern wall where Theodosius’ new towers were all but complete, the forest was thick and dark. For all it was Iunius by now, the sun only dappled through the green canopy of the oak and the ash here and there, creating little circles of light in the gloom.

  Over the past few weeks this had become the haunt of the Black Knives. They preyed on travellers from Caesaromagnus and Camulodunum further north, the merchants passing through the territory of the still-peaceful Trinovantes to the hub of the universe that was Londinium. Leocadius visited when he could because they had set up a permanent camp, a cluster of thatched huts past which a stream ran. They fished in the Thamesis but those men were not hunters. They had all been born in the city and their fathers before them and they found the country strange and wild. The alleyways were their hunting ground, the quiet courts after dark and the rat-infested wharves. They took turns to camp out here in the wilderness
, never more than six of them and they brought their women and children with them.

  This morning, Paulinus Hupo had turned up to watch his tame tribune put the Knives through their paces. He stayed back in the trees for a while, leaning on the neck of his horse and watching the display.

  ‘Right, Lucius,’ Leocadius said. ‘One more time, then. I am a citizen … er … a dealer in wines, say. I’m carrying a purseful of silver because I’ve just done a deal at the quayside. What do you do?’

  ‘I stop you.’ Lucius was not the sharpest of the Black Knives, but he showed some promise.

  ‘Where will you do this?’

  ‘Er … somewhere dark.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Leocadius was watching the others to make sure they were watching him. ‘Right. Here I am. I have unwisely left the Via Principalis and I’m plodding on, minding my own business.’

  ‘Whoa!’ Lucius slammed the flat of his hand into the tribune’s chest.

  ‘No, no, not yet,’ Leocadius said. ‘What do we always do first?’

  ‘Um … oh, check the road.’

  ‘Do it, then.’

  Lucius looked backwards and forwards along the dark alleyway of his imagination. ‘All clear,’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Whoa!’ he slapped his hand against Leocadius’ chest again, but this time, the tribune grabbed his wrist, wrenched it hard behind the man’s back and kicked his legs away from under him.

  ‘And if you do that,’ Leocadius said, ‘three things will happen. One, you will have got nothing from your unwary traveller. Two, he may have broken your arm. And three, he might well decide to cut your throat as you’re lying there, just for annoying him.’ He hauled the man upright. ‘Now, we’ll do it again. And this time don’t touch me.’

  Lucius pulled his tunic into place and cleared his throat. ‘Whoa!’ he said, keeping well out of the tribune’s reach.

  ‘Yes?’ Leocadius put on a silly, middle-aged merchant sort of voice which had the others sniggering.

  ‘I want your purse,’ Lucius said.

  ‘You can't have it,’ Leocadius was staying in character.

  ‘Then I’ll have to take it,’ the lout said and made a grab for it. The tribune whirled away like a dancer in the arena and Lucius missed. He straightened and tried again and again Leocadius darted to one side.

  ‘Let me try,’ a voice grunted from the trees. It was Gillo, the man whose arm Leocadius had ripped the first time he was introduced to Paulinus Hupo. He had not attended these sessions before but he had heard all about them from the others and he was not sure he approved. From his hiding place in the trees, Hupo sat upright. He was about to ride forward, put a stop to this nonsense, when something made him hang back.

  Lucius got out of the way, vowing to work on his technique and Gillo stood in front of Leocadius. He was half a head taller, with massive shoulders and brawny arms. And he was swaying from side to side, ready to pounce whichever way Leocadius ran.

  ‘I’ll take the purse, tribune,’ he growled, ‘but first I’ll take the dagger.’

  Leocadius’ left hand flashed under the mock sagum he was wearing in his role as the merchant and his knife hissed through the air. The blade thudded into Gillo’s right shoulder and he staggered back two or three paces, clutching at the air with his good hand as blood spurted down his sleeve.

  ‘You bastard!’ he hissed, more in disbelief than pain. Leocadius had crossed the space between them in two strides and gripped the knife hilt. ‘Now,’ he said, looking Gillo in the face, ‘Either I take this out or I push it in further. Either way it’s going to hurt like hell and you may never use that arm again. Of course, if I push it in, you’ll probably bleed to death anyway. Oh, and by the way, you haven’t got my purse yet.’

  ‘All right!’ a voice bellowed from the trees. ‘That’s enough.’

  Paulinus Hupo walked his horse into the clearing and swung out of the saddle. He pushed past Leocadius and wrenched the knife out of Gillo’s shoulder. The man winced and grunted and had to be steadied by the others. ‘Get that cleaned up,’ he barked, ‘and get him back to the city. It’ll need stitches.’

  He looked at Leocadius. Then he swung an arm around the man’s shoulder and handed him his dagger, pommel first. ‘Let’s have a chat, Leo,’ and he took him off into the forest.

  Here, out of sight and earshot of the others, Hupo hauled a wineskin off his shoulder and took a swig before passing it to Leocadius. He smiled. ‘I knew I’d made the right decision,’ he said.

  ‘About what?’ the tribune asked.

  ‘About you,’ Hupo sat down on a treestump. ‘You actually like hurting people, don’t you?’

  Leocadius shrugged. ‘It goes with the territory,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not,’ Hupo said. ‘I know tribunes who have never drawn a sword in anger.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Leocadius smiled, taking another swig, ‘But they weren’t heroes of the Wall, were they?’

  Hupo’s laugh was bitter. ‘You know he let you all live, don’t you?’ he said, the smile fading.

  ‘Who?’ Leocadius asked.

  ‘The man with the silver helmet.’

  ‘Valentinus?’ the tribune frowned. ‘What do you know of him?’

  ‘Only what I hear on the streets,’ Hupo shrugged. ‘I’m just a general dealer, remember.’

  ‘General dealer, my arse!’ Leocadius growled. He took a step towards Hupo. ‘If you know something …’

  The leader of the Black Knives held up his hand. ‘You’re not going to throw your dagger at me, are you, Leo?’ he chuckled. ‘That would be very unwise.’

  ‘What do you know of Valentinus?’ Leocadius asked again, his eyes flashing fire.

  Hupo saw that look and read it well. ‘You really want him, don’t you?’ he said. ‘Old scores, eh?’

  ‘You could say that,’ the tribune said. A wind suddenly blew through Leocadius’ soul. For a moment he was back again on the windswept, barren moors with the rooks and the ravens for company and corpses burning on the Wall.

  ‘I may be able to help,’ Hupo said.

  ‘How?’

  The general dealer shrugged. ‘A lot of tittle-tattle comes my way, Leo, from travellers in the tabernae, sailors on ships. Oh, most of it is inconsequential rubbish, but just occasionally, there are nuggets of pure gold. Your man could be dead.’

  ‘Valentinus? Dead?’

  ‘You know about that helmet they found?’ Hupo checked.

  ‘Yes,’ Leocadius nodded. ‘I’ve even seen it. They keep the bloody thing at the governor’s palace like some damned Celtic talisman.’

  ‘So do you think he’s dead?’

  Leocadius thought for a moment. ‘I’d want to see his corpse myself,’ he said. ‘A big man, on a black horse, they say.’

  Hupo snorted. ‘They also say my city was founded by Aeneas, the hero of Troy. Pure bollocks.’

  ‘So how do you know about Valentinus?’ Leocadius persisted.

  ‘I don’t,’ Hupo shrugged. ‘At least, not yet. But I know people who know people. I’ll get back to you, I promise.’

  ‘Marvellous!’ Leocadius took another swig of wine.

  ‘In the meantime, did I tell you that, I have even bigger plans – Aedile for life.’

  ‘Aedile?’ Leocadius frowned.

  ‘Yes,’ Hupo smiled. ‘I run the Games. The arena. The place where they kill people. Interested?’

  CHAPTER XV

  Valentia, Ver, in the Year of the Christ 370

  Justinus knew he should not have ridden out onto the moors alone but he also knew he had no choice. A slow spring was coming to the north, the streams running free of ice and snow and babbling a welcome of sorts as his horse padded over the heather.

  The Jovii and the Victores, under the watchful eye of the engineer Rutilius, had rebuilt the Wall from Arbeia to Camboglanna, deepening ditches, piling stones, lashing palisades to a double thickness. Where there had been one platform for a wild as
s, there were now two and every fort had its ballistae, every milecastle its beacon. Lovingly, the legions had restored the graveyards to the south and where they found bones, they gave them a decent burial. And they rebuilt the shrines as they found them – the temples of Oceanus and Neptune at Pons Aelius; Atrenocitus at Condercum; the Mithraeum at Brocolitia; and the grave of the greatest hero of them all, the centurion Lucius Castus of the VIth Victrix, who had lived and died defending Vindovala.

  Milestones were hauled upright and resunk into the clay. The building of the towns and villas to the south would take longer, although the townsfolk themselves were already at work on them, putting up new roofs, re-glazing windows, hacking down trees for the framework of buildings. The north was Roman again. And of Valentinus there was no sign.

  Justinus reined in his horse north of Camboglanna. There the Jovii had established themselves, but the little town that led to the river had no families yet. This legion was a field army. It was up to General Maximus if they left or if they stayed. Their wives and children were far away in all the wide reaches of the Empire.

  Justinus was back where all this had started, as it seemed to him, so long ago, looking at the overgrown ruins of Banna. The outlying forts to the north, in the Selgovae country that had once been Valentia, had not been rebuilt yet. Justinus was the last Roman to leave this place alive and now he was the first one to return. He half expected to see the grisly corpse of Ulpius Piso, the first centurion, spread-eagled above the tower wall. All he saw now was grass and weeds sprouting in every corner. And he heard the wind, that damned wind that moaned and sang along the Wall.

  He dismounted and looped the reins to a milestone, half sunk in the grass. He wandered into the courtyard with its crumbling, shattered stones and remembered the dead who had lain there; Clitus the Hand player, Drusus with his easy laugh, Lucullus the eagle-eyed. He saw their faces, a deathly white with eyeless sockets that stared at him and gaping mouths that seemed to say ‘Where have you been? What kept you so long?’